Electrical waste worth billions ends up in the garbage

Mobile phones, toys, remote controls, headphones, chargers, children’s shoes with flashing lights – everything is electrical scrap and should be handed in as such. But almost a quarter ends up in household waste, according to the producer responsibility organization Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) Forum.

The electrical scrap contains valuable materials worth billions of kroner. Just the e-cigarettes discarded in 2022 contained enough lithium for 15,000 electric cars.

Sorts correctly

In Sweden, according to the official statistics, we are at around 13 kilos of discarded electrical scrap per year per person – above the EU average of eleven kilos, according to the producer responsibility company Recipo.

But according to an estimate from the IVL Swedish Environmental Institute from 2021, 8,000 tons of small electronics still end up in the garbage in Sweden every year.

As more and more products contain electronics, the risk of something going wrong increases.

I think that if you think of old used-up electronics, it’s your TV and microwave oven, but maybe not those flashing shoes or toys with tiny electronics deep inside, says Mårten Sundin, marketing and communications manager at the industry organization El-Kretsen.

The fact that it ends up in the household waste is the absolute worst. On the one hand, environmentally hazardous substances can come out and on the other hand we do not make use of the resources that are available, so it is a double loss.

Lying and littering

There is also a large amount of electronics just lying around. According to the WEEE Forum, there are around 700 million mobile phones in European households that are not being used or are not working.

We Swedes are no better there. According to Hugo Chorell, sales manager at Recipo, we are particularly bad at small electronics such as mobile phones. An estimate is that there are 20–25 million unused mobile phones in Swedish homes.

Old mobile phones are plentiful in Europe. Archive image.

Old mobile phones are plentiful in Europe. Archive image.

Photo: Paul Sancya/AP/TT

A survey by the WEEE forum shows that, in addition to lamps, an average European home contains 74 different electrical products. Of them, nine are not used even though they work and four are broken.

We see the age of the stuff that comes in to us, they have long since passed the best before date. Half of the mobile phones we receive have buttons, says Mårten Sundin.

According to the survey, the most common reason for leaving electrical products lying around is that you think you will use them in the future. In second place that you should sell or give them away and in third place that they have sentimental value.

Fact: That’s why we save electrical products

The most common reasons for saving on electrical products:

1. You will probably use them later (46 percent)

2. You intend to sell or give them away (15 percent)

3. They have sentimental value (13 percent)

4. They can become valuable in the future (9 percent)

5. You don’t know how to get rid of them (7 percent)

The WEEE Forum, with the help of its member organisations, has carried out a survey in Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy, Romania, Slovenia and the UK. 8,775 households participated in the study.

Source: WEEE Forum

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